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The Super Bowl is a magical time and place for brands. A rare and brief three-or-so hour moment when people want to see commercials. Every marketers Xanadu. What defines a great Super Bowl ad is obviously subjective, no matter what the Ad Meters, and any number of other measurement tech tells you. Hell, even your own brain might be lying to you. The real scorecard is unique to each brand and what it considers the worth of up to $40 million or more in investment around the game. My criteria for a good Super Bowl ad remains relatively simple: Is it fun or emotional in a way that is both entertaining and memorable? An easy question to ask, but as each year proves, much more difficult to answer. Before I get into my top 5 list, here are the honorable mentions. The coffee wars come to the Super Bowl! Im a fan of Dunkins work with Ben Affleck, created by Artists Equity Advertising (the ad arm of Affleck and Matt Damon-founded Artists Equity). This years spot was a funny take on the coffee wars, using a part-Warriors, part-Anchorman dynamic to continue the adventures of the DunKings. I also really liked Starbucks Hello Again, by Anomaly, which aimed to remind us why we liked the brand in the first place. However, the spot could be used as a case study in how crucial the right song can be, because this ad wouldnt hit nearly as hard without AC/DCs classic Thunderstruck. After 27 years, its about time we saw another Nike commercial in the Super Bowl. Hare Jordan is arguably a Top 10 all-time Super Bowl commercial, so getting the swoosh back feels right. Now in So Win, the brand used Led Zeppelin and a murderers’ row of female superstars to stylishly continue its swing back to the ultra-competitive attitude Nike was built on. My admiration for what FanDuel has created with Kick of Destiny is well-documented, and continues this year. While the main event isnt technically an in-game adthis year cleverly embedding itself within the Fox pregame showit remains one of the best-ever Super Bowl brand ideas. Speaking of all-time big game brand ideas, another shout-out to Doritos for bringing back Crash The Super Bowl after an eight-year hiatus. The spots were fun, funny, and the contest remains a benchmark in fan participation. And lastly, a shout-out to the brands that decided to go full emosh and actually pulled it off with impressive results. The NFLs Somebody, Lays Little Farmer, and Googles Dream Job all struck a nice balance for the brands and the moment. OK, now on to my top 5 ads of the 2025 Super Bowl. Stella Artois “David & Dave: The Other David” Its a premise that could be explained in one line: David Beckham finds out he has a secret American twin named Dave. This is Artists Equity Advertisings first Super Bowl spot for a brand thats not Dunkin’, and here we have the companys other co-founder Damon in a starring role. I spoke to execs at the agency for a story coming out later this week, and they told me the brief from the brand was to shift Stellas image in the U.S. as an upscale beer to more of a quality everyday beer. Enter Dave Beckham. Weve seen David pitch for the brand plenty of times, in ads, on Hot Ones, and beyond, but here we get to see a funnier side of the soccer legend. Mountain Dew “Kiss From A Lime” Mountain Dew has long-been one of the more experimental Super Bowl advertisers. In 2021, it enlisted John Cena to challenge viewers with a contest to be the first person to tweet the correct number of Mountain Dew Major Melon bottles that appeared in the ad for a chance to win $1 million. In 2018, it partnered with sibling brand Doritos for a surreal rap battle between Peter Dinklange and Morgan Freeman. And of course, 2016 gifted us the classic Puppymonkeybaby. This year the brand went all in on the big game version of unhinged. Seal as a seal? Directed by Taika Waititi, not only is this absurdity bullseye consistent with the sodas identity when it comes to the Super Bowl, it delivers an on-brand ear-worm care of a 1994 love ballad. Whats not to like? (Its still in your head, isnt it?) Uber Eats “A Century of Cravings” Uber Eats made a relatively late decision in September to completely change its Super Bowl plansa planning process that typically starts in July. A spot starring Matthew McConaughey, in which he floated a conspiracy theory that the function of all sports is to act as a catalyst for us to eat more food, got a great response. Could they continue that in the big game? Short answer: yep. Here it goes deeper. Not deep like finger-rolling a booger in your Lincoln deep; just different deep. A decade on, The McConaissance is still deep in its commercial era, and here the Oscar winner keeps the streak alive by giving us a history lesson of his earlier conspiracy. Its a fun instalment of an overall celebrity-soaked ad strategy that manages to stand out, even as Pringles put up a strong challenge to its multi-celeb approach. I think people now have a clearer understanding of our brand and tone because were consistently showing up with a very specific type of spot that is landing a specific type of humor, Ubers head of marketing for North America Georgie Jeffreys, told me last week. Even if the message changes, the core tenets of our brand are the same. Bud Light “Big Men on Cul-De-Sac” Just like at a bar, it was a close call between this and Bud Lights blood rival Coors Light. Both ads are really funny and pretty much exactly what a light beer ad in the Super Bowl should aim for. What puts Bud Light over the line here is how it not only meets the above criteria, but does so with solid brand consistency. A great big game ad that doesnt feel like a one-off is often a rare species. This isnt the first time weve seen Post hit the field for Bud Light, and the work Gillis has done over the past year has completely reinvigorated the brands personality. Todd Allen, Bud Lights senior vice president of marketing told me that it was a no-brainer for the brand to keep the momentum going and continue to lean into Gillis brand of humor. Theres absolutely no bigger stage to deliver a laugh than the Super Bowl, and when you combine a comedic powerhouse like Shane with Bud Light, I think we have a winning formula, said Allen. Liquid Death Safe For Work I mentioned the importance of the right song earlier with Starbucks, and here it applies just as much, but in a totally different way. Instead of relying on a classic song or new hit banger to tap into the audiences existing affinity, Liquid Death crafted its own hilarious, pseudo-country jam about drinking on the job. The cops are drinking, the surgeons are drinking, the pilots are drinking, the court judges, the football refs, even the school bus drivers are all drinking on the job. Liquid Death is no stranger to celebrities. Its worked with Martha Stewart, Bert Kreischer, Tony Hawk, and more. But here, the brand shrewdly avoided any big names knowing full well its exactly the opposite of what the majority of Super Bowl advertisers would do. The sharp contrast between the parade of celebrity pitchfolks and this lack of Hollywood star power, makes the ad stand out for all the right reasons.
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E-Commerce
For the first time in 27 years, we saw a Nike commercial in the Super Bowl. Has it really been that long? Hard to believe that one ofif not theworlds greatest marketing brands hasnt been on the big game stage for almost three decades. Hare Jordan is arguably a Top 10 all-time Super Bowl ad. Blame complacency, the fragmentation of media and culture, or whatever you like, but getting the swoosh back to the Super Bowl just feels right. Not only that, but the brand is using this opportunity to re-establish its hardcore athlete bonafides, in case anyone forgot. Created with Wieden+Kennedy, and narrated by Grammy winner Doechii, here we get a cranked up, black and white film, set to Led Zeppelins Whole Lotta Love. It features top athletes like ballers Caitlin Clark, Aja Wilson, JuJu Watkins and Sabrina Ionescu; footballer Alexia Putellas, tennis star Aryna Sabalenka, sprinter ShaCarri Richardson, and more, all showing the various ways they’re proving critics wrong. Chief marketing officer Nicole Hubbard Graham says the brand returned to the Super Bowl in order to tap into one of the very few mass, shared cultural experiences we have left. Thinking about the Super Bowl and thinking about this moment, it felt very timely to tell this athlete story, says Graham. Women are just absolutely shattering records right now, selling out stadiums, ticket sales, commanding contracts like you’ve never seen before, and being placed with probably some of the harshest expectations of how you’re supposed to act. And I think they will redefine what it means to be athletes and personalities of the future. Down on your luck. No one believes. The odds are stacked. Nike is using the most reliable premise in all epic sports stories to not only make a point about any individual athlete, and the state of womens sports, but also to give a not-so subtle middle finger to all the shade the brand itself has been thrown over the past year or so. Attitude adjustment Soon after Graham took over as CMO, her first order of business was to talk to the brands elite stable of athletes. What she heard most often was the notion of winning had a losing reputation in the world. The whole idea of being maniacally focused and obsessive and following your dreams to no end was sort of becoming a little bit taboo in society, says Graham. We thought that was a really interesting insight. And that led to the Olympic work. Winning Isnt For Everyone was an ode to the uncompromisingly competitive. Narrated by Willem Dafoe, the work was reminiscent of Nikes campaign for the 1996 Olympic Summer Games in Atlanta that featured the tagline, You dont win silver, you lose gold. As I wrote at the time, the new Olympic work marked a return of the f**k you attitude in Nike advertising that taps into its hardcore athlete pedigree. The Super Bowl campaign is the start of a larger campaign that will run into 2025, all looking to tap back into Nikes connection to athletes by using the same foundations of style and emotion that built the brand in decades past. This brand wasn’t built on Google ads or clicks, it was built on feelings, and big, disruptive, irreverent, emotional ideas. says Graham. That has been a really important strategy for us, and obviously with our partners at Wieden. How do we make sure that we are very much athletes over algorithms? Bigger picture The brand will need all the emotional power it can get to counter the headwinds it’s been facing. Last summer, Nike saw its biggest stock drop since 2001. Second-quarter revenue dipped by 8%. The brand is up against steep competition across major sports like running, thanks to a resurgent Adidas and Brooks, as well as newer players like On and Hoka. Critics point to a lack of innovation, being more about streetwear Air Jordans and Dunks than performance products. Emarketer senior analyst Zak Stambor says that the brand has taken a lot of steps to identify its problems and to right the ship. Getting back to iconic advertising is just a piece of it. For all of Nike’s challenges, the power of the brand remains incredibly strong, says Stambor. If the marketing can lean on that core strength, it likely will resonate. Then comes the need for everything else. You don’t want the marketing to drive the ship, it should be following the lead of the innovation, but it’s still a significant part of the puzzle. Last year, particularly with the arrival of Graham, the brand started its mission to get back to the strategy co-founder Phil Knight espoused: First capture the market for hard core athletes with innovative performance gear, and the casual consumer will follow. Graham agrees and describes Nikes biggest strength as a triangle that is built on its athlete partnerships. Unique insights lead to innovative products, which are then talked about through aspirational and inspiring ways. The work appears to be backing that up. Executives said on a recent earnings call that there are truly transformative sneakers coming for spring of 2025. Last week, the brand revealed Aja Wilsons long-awaited signature shoe, to much fanfare. We’re getting back to that trifecta, says Graham. That is our winning playbook, and that’s what you’re going to see from us over and over and over again. If Nike cant be iconic, its going to push its hardest to be iconic.
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E-Commerce
The challenge is formidable: Create an ad campaign that somehow shows a brands integral role in a pivotal moment of human history. But also, like, make it fun? When OpenAIs ChatGPT hit 100 million users two months after its launch in November 2022, a UBS study declared it the fastest-growing consumer application in history. Now at upwards of 400 million users, ChatGPT might be the best-known consumer product to invest the least in advertising. Historic product awareness, zero brand awareness. For OpenAI chief marketing officer Kate Rouch, the Super Bowl was the perfect stage to start telling the world what the brand actually means. Obviously, 130 million people are watching this, says Rouch. ChatGPT has 400 million users worldwide, so it’s not a niche technology. But we do have an opportunity to help them understand both the historical moment we’re in as well as the fact that they can participate today in this new movement and use these tools right now. The ad cleverly uses ChatGPT’s cursor dot to show people how it thinks. Set to cheerful music, we see eras of human progress animated in the dots. From fire to the wheel to agriculture, trains, the lightbulb, air travel, space exploration, and computing, until we see the tagline, All progress has a starting point. Its a conscious move to embed the product in the brand message. Rouch made a similar move back in the 2022 Super Bowl, when she was CMO at Coinbase. The crypto exchanges floating QR code ad went viral and drove so many people to its platform that the app crashed. When you ask ChatGPT a question, the dot comes up, and that is actually expressed in other OpenAI products as part of the brand design that we just refreshed, says Rouch. People are sitting around at Super Bowl parties, and they’re going to be like, Whoa, hey do you use ChatGPT? How do you use it? And they’ll pull out their phones. Building the brand The Super Bowl ad comes at a compelling time for the OpenAI and ChatGPT brand. Long the leader in awareness, the recent launch of DeepSeek has added a new element of competition for what AI tools will be in peoples pockets. Given its head start, Rouchs focus is on talking to the 400 million people who have been using ChatGPT about what exactly it can do. While we all worry about the impending robot apocalypse or hail a new technological age, theres a massive gray area between that existential level and using generative AI to help you write a better email. The brands job is to bridge that divide. What we’re attempting to do here is two things, says Rouch. Find that middle ground, which is to say, on one hand it is important that people understand this isn’t status quo. This is the dawn of the intelligence age. There’s something important happening historically here that you should know about. But also that this is a tool in your pocket right now that can do tons of interesting things for you. Thats where the Super Bowl ad comes in. Connecting the dots To create OpenAIs first major brand ad, Rouch enlisted Accenture Song CEO David Droga and his agency, which have created many Super Bowl ads for brands. The agency’s approacha peppy, product-first narrativehas a familiar connection to work Drogas namesake agency Droga5 made for the original Google Pixel back in 2016. Back then, it was the search bar transforming into a phone. Here, its the dots illustrating the historical context of these new AI tools. In both cases, the message comes through loud and clear: This technology is about to change your life. Droga and Song have long been bullish on AI. In 2023, Song parent company Accenture announced it would spend $3 billion on AI over three years, and Droga has talked about the impact generative AI would have on advertising creative, emphasizing these tools would allow humans to create better ideas quicker and more often. Many brands start thinking about their Super Bowl work in the summer. Rouch started her job in December. She says the ad itself was created with humans, but the concepting and experimentation on ideas did utilize AI tools like OpenAIs video GenAI tool Sora. We use it as a concepting tool, so nothing you see in the ad was created by Sora, says Rouch. But because we made this on a pretty compressed timeline, it really helped the creatives prototype, experiment with camera angles, and things like that, all to speed up the process. For OpenAI, the Super Bowl is an announcement of its ambition to go beyond a ubiquitous product and become the next iconic tech brand. Its got the hype, now Rouch is looking to add the emotion to its brand. At OpenAI, the mission is to create safe AGI, or advanced artificial intelligence, that benefits all of humanity, says Rouch. That’s a very intentional mission, so you will see that in our ambition and approach to build the brand and interact with people.
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E-Commerce
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